Saturday, March 29, 2008

Future War Tank (1939)

This image appeared on the back cover of the December, 1939 issue of Amazing Stories. The accompanying text for this "Future War Tank" is below.

Future War TankThis Land Battleship Can Form The Spearhead of Attack in Future Wars

It will be used to penetrate and smash strategic enemy positions and hold them until support arrives. massively armored, they will brush aside ordinary tanks. Only direct hits by heavy guns will affect it. Its anti-aircraft guns will repel aerial attack. Flame throwers will demoralize infantry resistance. Trenches and fortifications will be crumbled. Its crew will defend captured positions for days if need be. Its great weight will pave a road for following infantry and field artillery. Its guns will cover their advance.

9 comments:

Now if it was controlled by an artificial intelligence, it could be Keith Laumer's Bolo (and later Steve Jackson's Ogre). Could Mr. Laumer have seen this and gotten the idea for his sci fi battle tank?

At the start of WWII tanks were generally light with speed being valued more than armour and firepower. During that war the Russians with the T34 and then the Germans with the Tiger and Panther led the way to bigger and bigger tanks.

"Its anti-aircraft guns will repel aerial attack." It sounds so easy on paper, but as the German army during their retreat from France could probably attest, tanks are easy pickings for fighter-bombers without friendly air cover. Another problem the authors of the article probably didn't anticipate is that keeping such a behemoth supplied with fuel would be a logistical nightmare - an opposing force wouldn't need to confront the thing directly but target its supply chain instead. Similar tactics employed by the British and Americans helped defeat Rommel in North Africa - his line of supply was overextended as it was, and by keeping the pressure on convoys of fuel and spare parts was near impossible to keep the German heavy armor active for any length of time.

Also a great example of military euphemisms -- flamethrowers will "demoralize" the enemy? Yeah I think my first thought on getting hit by a flamethrower would be "shoot, I just don't care about this war any more".

Typical mid 20th century thinking. Themilitary now knows what the generations before them knew: That lighter and faster is better. even the newest heavily armored vehicles are stripped down and tired (rather than tracked) for speed.

Not to mention any tank that huge would become bogged down in most terrain and be incredibly difficult to manoeuvre. Judging be the picture, I don't think that thing can turn. Given the dynamics of modern warfare, this thing is just large, slow and pointless.